The knowledge triangle – education, research and innovation – is crucial for development. It is widely felt that collaboration between Southern and Northern academic and non-academic partners to achieve greater innovation can and should be improved. Ghent University, University of the Western Cape, Wageningen UR Centre for Development Innovation, Nuffic and VLIR-UOS initiated a one-year process to discuss ways in which university development cooperation programmes can lead to innovation.

There is a huge potential for innovation in the South, especially in the health, energy and agricultural sectors. The process organisers formulated several recommendations for funding agencies and governments on how to promote innovation in developing countries through the knowledge triangle.

There is no shortage of innovative ideas and excellent practices at Southern universities, but the lack of business-university networks and attractive career perspectives hinders the unlocking of their potential. There is a need for more pro-active support for entrepreneurship and research & development at Southern universities, for example by creating technology transfer offices.

This DPRN process helped to strengthen the relationships between academic partners in South Africa, the Netherlands and Flanders. The University of Ghent intends to follow up the process with a workshop in two to three years. Other follow-up will take the form of academic publications. Authors affiliated to Wageningen UR Centre for Development Innovation will write a paper on 10 years of university development cooperation through Nuffic projects. Karen Vandervelde (Ghent University) is preparing a paper on ‘Innovation indicators and monitoring development’, which discusses why measuring progress is as difficult and as crucial as making progress. This will be based on the draft report on innovation indicators written during the DPRN process [link]. A paper by Nancy Terryn of Ghent University will focus on how University Development Cooperation projects can be more successful in their ‘valorisation’ to society.